BLUE DADS

"Blue Dads"

AUTHOR'S NOTE: "One Friday night in 1987, I was transcribing notes from a football game I had just covered. I was a neophyte reporter for a weekly newspaper in a small California town. I was alone that night and heard a noise in the rear of the building. The only light switch was near the back door. Between me and that switch was a bunch of old typesetting gear and a whole lot of darkness. I decided to leave early—through the front. That minor scare was the kernel for 'Blue Dads.' "

LITERARY INFLUENCES: The detail and economy of John D. Macdonald, and the sense of place and ghoulish depravity of Stephen King.

CINEMATIC INFLUENCES: “The Wicker Man,” “Race with the Devil,” “Straw Dogs” and all those other 1970s movies that make you look askance when you stop at a small town in the middle of nowhere.

DESCRIPTION: Reporter Stan Fenilkopf finds another dead-end newspaper job, this time in Coppin Springs, California, an enclave between the vast metros of the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Just when he suspects he's losing his nose for the dying news business, Stan happens upon a mysterious company, a seductive woman at the mercy of her damaged past, and the lurid history of a town that preys on its own. (Mass market paperback / 333 pages)